Market witnesses a bounce

The Sensex, which showed signs of recovery by opening with gains of over 142 points, failed to hold on to its early gains on relentless selling in heavyweight and cement stocks and touched an intra-day low of 12861. The index pared some losses in the afternoon but fell sharply on profit booking at higher levels in cement, auto and consumer durables stocks. Substantial buying in Wipro, TCS, Reliance Communications and Satyam Computer restricted the southbound journey and the Sensex notched up significant gains in late trades to touch an intra-day high of 13193. The Sensex closed with gains of 221 points at 13160, while the Nifty gained 66 points and closed at 3811.

However, the market breadth was negative. Of the 2,614 stocks traded on the BSE 1,407 stocks declined, 1,143 stocks advanced and 64 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE IT index surged 4.13%, the BSE Teck index jumped 3.36%, the BSE Bankex added 2.75% and the BSE CD index was up 2.04%. However, the BSE Auto index shed 0.77%.

Several index heavyweights notched up significant gains on fresh buying support. Among the major gainers TCS soared 5.65% at Rs1,256, Satyam Computers surged 5.47% at Rs435 and HDFC Bank jumped 5.20% at Rs981. Reliance Communications and Wipro added 5.09% each at Rs428 and Rs589 respectively. Infosys at Rs2,153, L&T at Rs1,540, ICICI Bank at Rs855, Tata Steel at Rs452 and NTPC at Rs142 gained 2-3% each.

Select counters came under selling pressure and ended in the red. Bajaj Auto tanked 3.93% at Rs2,514, Gujarat Ambuja declined 3.62% at Rs112, ACC dropped 2.61% at Rs877, Dr Reddy's slumped 2.10% at Rs663 and Hindalco shed 1.75% at Rs137.

The IT counters rallied sharply. Mphasis soared 7.79% at Rs279, HCL Technologies jumped 5.96% at Rs632, Tech Mahindra added 3.95% at Rs1,491 and Patni Computer gained 1.92% at Rs429.

Value-wise Indian Bank registered a turnover of Rs287 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance Industries (Rs203 crore), ACC (Rs121 crore), Bajaj Auto (Rs97 crore) and Reliance Communications (Rs89 crore).